DeWine speaks at Bucyrus Mayor’s Prayer Luncheon

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine speaks at the Mayor’s Prayer Luncheon at Holy Trinity School in Bucyrus on May 11. DeWine talks about suffering through several topics including his own tragedies as well as the struggles across Ohio with opiate addiction and the Piketown community where eight murders happened in April.

Brandon Klein | Galion Inquirer

Suffering was the concept frequently brought up at the the Mayor’s Prayer Luncheon at the Holy Trinity School, 740 Tiffin St., in Bucyrus on Wednesday.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, the main guest speaker of the event, touched on several subjects with suffering as the common denominator including the opiate and heroin epidemic and the murders of eight people in Piketon a few weeks ago.

“I see a lot of suffering,” DeWine said.

The attorney general also talked about his own suffering from the death of his daughter, Becky, in a car accident August 1993. Her death had changed him, he said.

Throughout his political career, DeWine said he wanted to focus on issues that few or none were working on.

“We’re going to be judged by what we do with our opportunities,” DeWine said. “It’s the sins of our omissions that weigh us down.”

Father John Miller of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Galion and Holy Trinity Church in Bucyrus said DeWine’s words are about the importance of getting back up after falling down in life.

“Hope is where we strive but suffering is what can shape us,” he said.

Proceeds from the luncheon assisted the Bucyrus Outreach & Restoration Network, a relief agency that helped more than 275 families, housed 76 people, paid 32 water bills and provided more than 300 job leads, said Eliza Cole, director of operations for BORN.

“[We’re] giving a hand up not a hand out,” she said. “We do marvelous things because of [God’s] strengths.”

Bucyrus Mayor Jeff Reser said he appreciated DeWine’s work to combat the “scourge of the opiate addiction” and presented him with a copper can as a gift.

“Thank you for leading the fight,” he said.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine speaks at the Mayor’s Prayer Luncheon at Holy Trinity School in Bucyrus on May 11. DeWine talks about suffering through several topics including his own tragedies as well as the struggles across Ohio with opiate addiction and the Piketown community where eight murders happened in April.

http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2016/05/web1_DSC_0074-1.jpgOhio Attorney General Mike DeWine speaks at the Mayor’s Prayer Luncheon at Holy Trinity School in Bucyrus on May 11. DeWine talks about suffering through several topics including his own tragedies as well as the struggles across Ohio with opiate addiction and the Piketown community where eight murders happened in April. Brandon Klein | Galion Inquirer

By Brandon Klein

bklein@civitasmedia.com

Reach Klein at 419-468-1117, ext. 2048 or on Twitter at @brandoneklein.